Come Walk a Beat on Heavan's Streets
by WIWJ
Summary: AU Faith tries to fogive herself. There is a death


**Come Walk a Beat on Heaven's Street.**

* * *

**This fic came from the poem. The poem came from a website dedicated to a fallen police officer here in St. Louis. I was working at the children's hospital across the street from the hospital he was brought to the night that happened. Every police officer in the city could be spotted out of our fifth floor window. **

**I wish I could give you the author but I don't know it. **

**If my time line is off forgive me. I intend to make one someday, so that I can easily reference what happened when in the life of Maurice Boscorelli. **

**Oh.. AU from the moment in Faith's apartment when he comes clean about his eyesight.**

Lori

* * *

"Faith?"

She heard him, her face still fixed forward, red rimmed eyes staring unfocused towards the front of the room.

"Mom?" He must have given Emily that withering look. Sully was always giving women withering looks in emotional situations.

She blinked her eyes, turning slowly towards her daughter with a missed attempt at a soft smile. Emily looks worried. She's tired of people looking worried. She pulls her eyes to Sullivan, less exhausted with withering.

"Do you want the poem?"

Poem. Her eyes blinked slowly. There was a poem.

"His mom's poem?"

Yes, damn it! She remembered the poem. Somewhere inside of herself she wanted to snap at John Sullivan. Less deep however, she didn't have the energy left.

"I-." She stopped, she didn't know what the I was for. She didn't know if she wanted the poem. She didn't know what the hell she wanted.

"I can." Emily said quickly, grabbing the poem out of Sullivan's hand. Faith attempted another smile. Her daughter was being protective. She would probably think that was nice. If she was thinking right now. Which she wasn't.

Sully nodded, before withering away.

He would hate the poem. He'd roll his eyes at it and whine her name. The mental image makes her chuckle.

Emily looks up, startled. She wonders when the last time she heard her mother chuckle was. Faith looks at her hands, laughing again at the image of her husband, eyes rolled back in a deep sigh.

"Mom?" Emily says softly, her eyes soft, sympathetic. She's so sick to death of soft sympathetic looks and worried glances. She's tired.

_Sick to death_. The words suddenly hit her and she chuckles again before it morphs into a sob. Emily slowly touches her back, knowing her mother with stiffen when she does. Faith doesn't let her down. The young woman's fingers spring back quicker then they came forward.

"Sorry." Faith breathes out before clamping her mouth shut in an attempt to stop crying.

"It's alright." Emily assures her, laying her program on the seat. "I'm going to check on Charlie."

Faith nods. Her daughter's learned in the last two weeks it's pointless to stay. She'd rather be alone. The only person who could be there when she cried is dead. Ty and Sasha keep their distance until she swallows a few times and returns her gaze forward.

"Faith?" She wants to yell at Sasha to just talk. Just talk! She knows they're standing there. She knows they are staring. Everyone's staring. They have been for months. Since the break room at Mercy Hospital exploded around them.

She nods. That's all they get. She wait's for it.

_Ty and I just want to tell you how sorry we are. _

She doesn't want them to tell her. She doesn't care if they're _sorry_.

"We um.. I.." Faith turns her head for a second. "I have his letter."

This stuns her, emotion flooding her face for the first time anyone can remember. Her head jerks towards them.

"How..?"

"Lieu gave it to me. " She runs her fingers over the seam of the envelope. Faith tries not to snatch it away. "He…"

She looks towards Swertsky, sitting on the opposite side of the room, face in his hands, the only person in the room who feels as guilty as her. Maybe more. The thought fades as she glances up at Sasha's slim, non-pregnant figure. No, she decides she defiantly feels the guiltiest.

"I tried to bring it to your place but you didn't answer so-." Sasha runs her hand over the front of her dress uniform as she speaks, like she knows what she's thinking.

Faith didn't wear hers. She couldn't. She'd stood staring at them laid out on her bed for the better part of an hour before angrily ripping her hand through them, scattering the pieces across the floor.

Sasha's quick movement brings her back to the letter. Bosco's last partner stretches out her hand, letting the white envelope shake in between them.

She takes it, watching the dress uniforms walk away until the melted with the rest before rising herself. She locks the bathroom door, leaning against the wall as she opens the letter.

_Faith,_

_I've written like seven of these damn things. I don't know what to say to you. Ty told Sasha to tell me to update my damn letter. Something they did after they got married I guess. I almost just changed the words of the last one._

_All these letters in the trashcan next to me are full of memories that you already have. Words I've already said. Or ones I know I don't have to say. So here it is. _

_Don't shut down. You don't have to be Superwoman. Even if you did marry Superman. I fell in love with Lois Lane. _

_What ever happened, don't regret it. I don't. I can promise you that. _

_Boz. _

She leans against the wall of the bathroom, slowly sinks down to the floor and sobs until there is a knock at the door.

"Faith?"

"Yeah?" She furrows her eyes at the door.

"You okay?" Sully's voice is gruff. For the first time in a long time it makes her smile. She slides back up the wall and opens the door.

"No." She shakes her head, biting her lip a little before looking at him. He's heard from Ty that she didn't want to be touched, but he can't help it. He drops his big hands on her slim shoulders. "It's my fault."

"I'd tell you it wasn't, but I've been there and I know it'll just make you want to hit me." He swallows a little. He's thinking of his own loss. "I've been trying to combine it."

"What?"

"How it felt to loose a partner with how it felt to loose my wife." He withers just a little and for the First time in two weeks she doesn't feel like mocking him for it. She swallows hard and drops her head against the chest of his dress blues, her body still inches from him. "I can't imagine it Faith. They both almost killed me." She sniffles, his hands tighten on her shoulders and they stand there in an awkward hug until Ty coughs from behind them.

"They want to get started." He chucks his finger back towards the chapel. Sully nods as Faith's head raises. She smiles at him, lip still firmly in her bite. Ty thinks she looks more like herself then she has in months.

* * *

They can hear Rose wailing when the come back in, someone -probably Sasha -finally ushering her into the room. Anthony Boscorelli was not invited, Faith had a uniform at the door with his picture in his breast pocket just in case.

She'd closed the street too. Welding her detective power, she'd closed the street. Once you've lived through a car crashing into a funeral you don't take anything for granted.

She moves to Emily reaching out her hand.

"Can I have the poem, Baby?"

Emily's eyes go wide when she looks at her mom's red eyes, clear for the first time in weeks. The young woman hands her the piece of paper and she crosses the room, dropping down in front of her boss.

"Rose, Bosco's mom? She really wants this read. Bosco'd hate it." She grinned a little looking at the man's glossy eyes as the left side of his mouth rose. "I thought you could.." She holds it out, watching the paper shake.

"Faith.." His voice is full of trepidation. "I don't think-."

"I shot for him." Her voice is strong for the first time in a long time. "**I** shot for him."

Bob Swertsky wants to argue. He wants to tell her he's retiring, that he'll never make a mistake that takes the life of a member of the NYPD ever again. He wants to fall at her feet and apologize for not throwing the book at them when he found out their secret.

He wants to go back and redo the moment when he sighed out and enormous breath before wordlessly dragging both Boscorellis' to the range, ignoring as Bosco missed shot after shot after shot until he managed to qualify on his own- barely. He wants back the moment he looked into Faith's eyes and said: _This never happened_.

But now in front of him she looks hopeful. She's forgiving and asking for forgiveness. He nodded, reaching out and taking the poem from her.

The policeman stood and faced God,  
Which must always come to pass.  
He hoped his shoes were shining,  
Just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, policeman.  
How shall I deal with you?  
Have you always turned the other cheek?  
To my church have you been true?"

The policeman squared his shoulders and said,  
"No lord, I guess I ain't,  
Because those of us who carry a badge  
can't always be a saint.

"I've had to work most Sundays,  
and at times my talk was rough,  
and sometimes I've been violent,  
Because the streets are awfully tough.

But I never took a penny,  
That wasn't mine to keep  
Though I worked a lot of overtime  
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,  
Though at time I shook with fear.  
And sometimes, God forgive me,  
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place  
Among the people here.  
They never wanted me around  
Except to calm their fear.  
If you've a place for me here, Lord,

It needn't be so grand.  
I never expected or had too much,  
But if you don't I'll understand.  
There was a silence all around the throne  
Where the saints had often trod.  
As the policeman waited quietly,  
For the judgement of his god.

"Step forward now, policeman,  
You've born your burdens well.  
Come walk a beat on Heaven's streets,  
You've done your time in hell"

* * *

The night he came to her, asking her to shoot for him she'd cried. Her hands shook as fast as her head.

"Don't make me." She'd whispered, her hands coming up to his temples. "I-. You can't be out there if you can't-." He held her wrists, pressing his forehead into hers.

"Faith you have to." He sighed, holding her to him. "You have to."

She whimpered when his lips crashed into hers. They'd made love that night, for the first time, then gone to the range again the next morning.

The night after Sasha was shot she'd met him at the hospital, holding him tightly in the waiting room as he tried to fight down his panic attack, only to take him to the ER when he couldn't.

They'd gotten married in Atlantic City the next day. Bosco'd begged her not to do it just because she was afraid they'd find out and force her to testify against them. She'd shut him up with a kiss that could have bent steel.

They'd gone to Swertsky then. He'd promised -swore that he hadn't had any problem seeing. It had been an accident. Sasha had insisted it was a clean shot, insisted he had no choice, insisted it wasn't his fault at all .

He'd yelled at them, paced and banged his fist on the door before they'd left for the range.

It was never 'officially' determined that policemen error had allowed the shooting of police officer Maurice Boscorelli, but his wife had seen the look in his partners eyes when Sasha had choked out the words 'he hesitated'. Bosco didn't hesitate. Bosco couldn't see.

This time there had been no miracle and Faith Boscorelli was a widow before her first anniversary.

Tonight she was laying in their bed, clutching a white envelope and trying not to have regrets.


End file.
